The Anna Freud Centre’s online research library contains a collection of evidence-based material on children and young people’s mental health, written and co-written by our team. The research explores factors relating to:
anxiety | behavioural difficulties | depression | digital mental health | empowering young people and families | early years | evaluation | fostering and adoption | intervention | maltreatment and abuse | measures | mentalization | methodology | neurodiversity | parents and carers| prevalence and trends | prevention | psychological therapies | resources | risk and resilience | social care | trauma | wellbeing
The library is managed by our team of evidence experts. It is updated on a regular basis and currently consists of research published between 2018 and 2023.
Please be aware that links to our open-access papers lead to external sites and that the management, data handling and administration of these external sites is not the Anna Freud Centre’s responsibility.
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Adolescent stressors and their perceived effects on mental wellbeing: a qualitative study
Supporting positive mental health development in adolescents is a major public health concern worldwide. Although several school-based programs aimed at preventing depression have been launched, it is crucial to evaluate these programs and to obtain feedback from participating adolescents. This study aimed to explore adolescents’ experiences with a -based cognitive-behavioral depression prevention program.
Authors: Eisenstadt, M., Stapley, E., Deighton, J. & Wolpert, M. (2020).
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Enduring mental health in childhood and adolescence: learning from the Millennium Cohort Study
Enduring mental health (EMH) is a relatively new concept, which refers to a long-term state of not experiencing a mental illness (ie, enduring mental wellness). No analysis using this concept has been undertaken on United Kingdom data nor specifically in the childhood years. The present study seeks to consider the extent and predictors of EMH in children aged 9 months to 14 years who were part of the UK-wide Millennium Cohort Study.
Authors: Deighton, J., Lereya, S. T., & Wolpert, M. (2020).
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Online counselling and goal achievement: exploring meaningful change and the types of goals progressed by young people
Young people are increasingly looking towards the internet for mental health support. There has been little research on the impact of online counselling, as captured in routine outcome measures. This research aims to explore an online counselling service, using goal-based data.
Authors: Jacob, J., Costa da Silva L., Sefi, A., & Edbrooke-Childs, J. (2020).
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School characteristics and children's mental health: a linked survey-administrative data study
Children spend a large amount of time in schools, making schools an important context for mental health prevention and support. We examine how school composition and school climate, controlling for individual child-level characteristics, are associated with children's mental health difficulties (emotional and behavioural difficulties).
Authors: Patalay, P., O'Neill, E., Deighton, J., & Fink., E. (2020).
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Problem severity and waiting times for young people accessing mental health services
Access to timely care is a quality standard underpinning many international healthcare models, and long waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services are often reported as a barrier to help-seeking. The aim of this study was to examine whether young people with more severe problems have shorter waiting times for mental health services.
Authors: Edbrooke-Childs, J., Deighton, J. (2020).
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A comprehensive mapping of outcomes following psychotherapy for adolescent depression: the perspectives of young people, their parents and therapists
This study mapped the types of change described by three key stakeholder groups following psychotherapy for depression, and compared the salience of these outcomes with the frequency of their measurement in recent quantitative treatment effectiveness studies for adolescent depression.
Authors: Krause, K., Midgley, N., Edbrooke-Childs, J. (2022).
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Exploring harm in psychotherapy: perspectives of clinicians working with children and young people
The potential for harm to occur from talking therapies has been acknowledged in academic literature. However, there is a paucity of research when it comes to exploring this phenomenon when working with young patients. This study explores clinicians’ perspectives on harm from talking therapies when working with children and young people.
Authors: Castro Batic, B., & Hayes, D. (2022).
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Children and young people’s experiences of completing mental health and wellbeing measures for research: learning from two school-based pilot projects
This research set out to explore the way that children and young people perceive and experience completing mental health and wellbeing measures, with a specific focus on completion in a school context, in order to inform future measure and research design.
Authors: Demkowicz, O., Ashworth, E., Mansfield, R., Stapley, E., Miles, H., Hayes, D., Burrell, K., Moore, A., & Deighton, J. (2020).
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Impact on mental health care and on mental health service users of the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods survey of UK mental health care staff
We investigated staff reports regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early weeks on mental health care and mental health service users in the UK using a mixed methods online survey.
Authors: Johnson, S., Dalton-Locke, C., Vera San Juan, N., Foye, U., Oram, S., Papamichail, A., Landau, S., Olive, R. R., Jeynes, T., Shah, P., Sheridan Rains, L., Lloyd-Evans, B., Carr, S., Killaspy, H., Gillard, S., Simpson, A. & The COVID-19 Mental Health Policy Research Unit Group (2021).
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Early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health care and on people with mental health conditions: framework synthesis of international experiences and responses
The COVID-19 pandemic has many potential impacts on people with mental health conditions and on mental health care, including direct consequences of infection, effects of infection control measures and subsequent societal changes. We aimed to map early impacts of the pandemic on people with pre-existing mental health conditions and services they use, and to identify individual and service-level strategies adopted to manage these.
Authors: Sheridan Rains, L., Johnson, S., Barnett, P. et al. (2021).